Judge: No change of venue for Entwistle trial

Friday

A Middlesex Superior Court judge this morning rejected a motion to dismiss murder charges against Neil Entwistle and also to change the location of his trial because of extensive publicity.

A Middlesex Superior Court judge this morning rejected a motion to dismiss murder charges against Neil Entwistle and also to change the location of his trial because of extensive publicity.

Judge Diane Kottmyer reviewed some two dozen motions by the prosecution and defense and said most of those involving whether certain evidence or testimony will be admitted during the trial will be addressed as the trial progresses.

Prosecution and defense attorneys argued the motions before moving on to issues relating to jury selection, which begins Monday.

Among the issues decided was an effort by the commonwealth to use a child sized mannequin at trial, a motion Kottmyer rejected. The mannequin would have been used to represent Entwistle's 9-month-old daughter Lillian Rose, who was shot and killed along with her mother, Rachel, on Jan. 20, 2006, in the family's Hopkinton home.
Kottmyer said a handful of other motions, including efforts to admit evidence of Neil Entwistle's bad acts and his flight to his home country of England, will be handled during the trial.

In arguing his motion to dismiss the charges, defense attorney Elliott Weinstein focused on the extensive publicity the case has received.

"We understand there hasn't been an indictment dismissed in Massachusetts for the grounds we submit to you,'' Weinstein told the judge. "We believe this case is one that calls for it.''

Weinstein said the case has "consumed the interest of all media locally, nationally and internationally,'' and cited a soon-to-be-published book written by a Boston Herald reporter entitled "Heartless: The True Story of Neil Entwistle and the brutal murder of his wife and child.''

Weinstein also mentioned the availability of coverage on the Internet, saying while earlier Web searches had turned up approximately 85,000 hits for Entwistle's name, a Google search Thursday night produced 165,000 hits.

"Earlier cases didn't have what this one has in terms of media saturation,'' he said.
Prosecutor Michael Fabbri responded by saying media coverage "is not enough to warrant dismissal of an indictment.''

Many other cases have attracted high levels of publicity but trials were conducted fairly, Fabbri said.